Many of the surgical instruments and supplies used in an operating room (OR) are reusable. These instruments and supplies typically include such things as clamps, scalpel blade handles, retractors, forceps, scissors, surgeon's towels, basins, and the like. All of these supplies must be collected after each procedure, decontaminated, placed in a sterilization container, and sterilized before they can be used again in another procedure. The sterilization container or packaging system used must be of the size and shape to accommodate the items to be sterilized and must be compatible with and withstand the physical conditions of the sterilization process. Typical sterilization packages or containers include disposable wraps and reusable rigid containers (RCs), which include a lid, a body, a filter, and one or more sealing gaskets. Typical means of sterilizing instruments include, among others, autoclaving with steam, exposure to ethylene oxide gas, and exposure to hydrogen peroxide plasma, as is done with the STERRAD® Sterilization System from Advanced Sterilization Products, Irvine, Calif. After the package and its contents have been sterilized, the sterilization package typically is stored until it is needed for a surgical procedure.
Preventing postoperative infection is critically important in surgical procedures. The use of properly sterilized surgical instruments is a key piece of the infection prevention paradigm. Sterilization package or container systems are designed to allow for proper steam penetration, post-autoclave cooling, indefinite aseptic storage of the instruments, and aseptic opening and removal of the instruments. RCs exhibit good durability and due to their reusability, represent a very economical sterilization method. However, RCs can be heavy, cumbersome, and/or awkward for a user to handle, depending, e.g., on the container's dimensions and weight relative to the user's size and physical abilities. Of course, such problems are also common to other types of containers, such as storage boxes, bins, or the like over a certain size. Often, the handles on rigid sterilization containers and other containers are not in a position or orientation for the most efficient, comfortable, and/or safe handling of the container.
Consequently, there is a need for a handle that overcomes the shortcomings of known container handles. In particular, a repositionable handle would be desirable. More particularly, a handle having a grip portion that may be changed from one orientation to another such that the grip portion has two or more orientations would be beneficial. Further, a handle changeable between two or more positions and having features for securing the handle in a particular position without compromising the ability to subsequently change the position of the handle would be advantageous. Additionally, a sterilization container for containing articles for sterilization having repositionable handles would be useful.